More on Better Call Saul

Better Call Saul returns to Netflix: Watch the trailer

After a longer break than usual, Bob Odenkirk is finally back for another series of Better Call Saul on Netflix.

The last series ended with a cliffhanger after Chuck, having sworn off contact with his brother Jimmy, began to suffer from EHS symptoms again. Isolated in his home, Chuck kicked a gas lamp over, trapping himself inside his own home as it burned.

Better Call Saul has received critical acclaim since it first arrived on AMC in the US in 2015. The series, envisioned as a lighter prequel to global hit Breaking Bad, stars Bob Odenkirk as a younger version of his immoral lawyer Saul Goodman.

Known as Jimmy McGill in the show, Better Call Saul explains the story of how public defender Jimmy became embroiled in the world of criminal law.

More on Better Call Saul

Better Call Saul renewed for fourth season by AMC

Fans will be pleased to hear AMC has renewed the massively popular Better Call Saul for a fourth season.

The Breaking Bad prequel will return for another 10 episodes in 2018, meaning we get to enjoy following the stories of our favourite characters Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) for another year yet.

Better Call Saul season three landed on Netflix during April of this year and was met with excellent reviews from critics and fans alike. So it’s no wonder AMC wasted no time in renewing the show for a fourth instalment!

“Supporting artists we respect and admire; delivering truly outstanding character development and nuanced dramatic twists and turns; continuing a legacy of bold creative choices; loving writing that is the best in the business: Truly, ‘S’all good, man'” said Charlie Collier, president of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios.

“Congratulations to Vince, Peter, Bob and everyone involved with Better Call Saul. Bring on season four!”

More on Better Call Saul

REVIEW: Better Call Saul season one premiere airs tonight on AMC UK

Tonight, UK audiences can finally watch popular Netflix series Better Call Saul on their television screens, as the season one premiere kicks off at 9pm on AMC.

The first episode – “Uno” – opens unexpectedly with a monochrome montage. As the melancholy tune “Address Unkown” by The Ink Spots plays, the show’s protagonist is shown silently performing his monotonous work routine at the American diner, Cinnabon. We can see the worn down, scruffy-moustached Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) is now living a colourless (quite literally depicted by the black and white visuals) and isolated life since running away from his problems in the Breaking Bad series.

At this point, hardcore Breaking Bad fans might be hoping for a continuation of their favourite series, as Better Call Saul appears to pick up from where we left off. However, after the opening credits, the story actually backtracks six years prior to the Walter White timeline. But don’t let this put you off. In fact, it is credit to creator Vince Gilligan that he did not take the show in such a predictable direction.

The viewer is introduced to a man far from the slimy Saul Goodman we knew in Breaking Bad. Instead, we meet Jimmy McGill; a small-time lawyer who lives in the shadow of his older brother Chuck McGill and who is struggling to make ends meet. He’s not the flashy sports car owner we recall, but instead wears an ill-fitted suit and drives around in a rickety yellow car that has a bright red door replacement.

It was actually pretty genius of Gilligan to have picked one of the more one-dimensional characters from Breaking Bad and flesh them out with a deeper back story. After all, there’s really not much further they could have taken a bigger character like Jesse Pinkman, as much as we’d love to be reunited with him. Even in the episode’s first moments, we encounter a completely different side to Saul as he nervously practices his lines for a courtroom case in the bathroom. Here, we seem to have a man who actually cares about his clients and his future career. It is clear the series will answer some interesting questions about what led him to become the scam artist he is in Breaking Bad.

Better Call Saul may not take the series in the action-packed direction of Breaking Bad, but the formula and visual aesthetic remain very similar. There is even a cameo from Mike Ehrmantraut, played by Jonathan Banks, who starts off as a car park attendant…and isn’t Jimmy’s biggest fan. The show is slower-paced and more dialogue focused, but once you adjust to Better Call Saul as a stand-alone series in its own right, rather than a spin-off, new excitement is found in the potential for character development and a cleverly thought-out plot.

Better Call Saul premieres Tuesday, June 27 at 9pm on AMC UK on BT TV, and continues every Tuesday thereafter.

Breaking Bad’s Walter White could be coming to Better Call Saul

Rumours about potential Breaking Bad character returns have been ongoing ever since Better Call Saul began in 2015. We’ve already seen a couple of our old favourites appear in the spinoff, including Mike Ehrmantraut and Tuco, as well as Saul himself of course.

The ultimate cameo would obviously be the one and only Heisenberg, and apparently Cranston may actually get involved with the series. However, unfortunately for us, this would probably be behind the camera.

According to Jimmy McGill actor Odenkirk, Cranston could help direct an episode at some point in the future. When asked if he keeps in contact with his old co-star, the star told ShortList: “We don’t text all the time or hang out in bars, but I see him occasionally.

“He watches the show, he’s proud of it. There’s talk of him helping out soon, maybe directing an episode – we’d like to get him on board.”

So we can probably rule out a Walt appearance in season three, but we won’t be giving up hope on a brief cameo entirely. Especially since Odenkirk revealed how “the plan is to bring [McGill/Goodman] to where we met him in Breaking Bad“.

One comeback we can guarantee, however, is that of Gus Fring. Actor Giancarlo Esposito first confirmed he would be appearing in the Breaking Bad prequel in January, when he tweeted “I’m back!” alongside a teaser of the villain putting on his charming businessman persona. Additionally, a new trailer landed in March in which season footage of the character was finally unveiled.

Better Call Saul returns to AMC in the US on April 10 and will be available on Netflix in the UK on April 11.

Breaking Bad fans will know, however, that beyond the charismatic facade lies a truly unsavoury character.

The new trailer is the first to reveal footage of the character as he will appear during the season, and he’s just as quietly menacing (now we know his secret) as ever.

Elsewhere, Chuck is back on the scene threatening brother Jimmy, while Jimmy declares “you destroyed our family”. Jimmy joins Mike on some sort of illegal mission and Kim puts up with a bad Jimmy joke.

It sounds like things are hotting up in Albuquerque!

Better Call Saul returns to AMC in the US on April 10. It is expected to be available on Netflix in the UK within a few hours of US broadcast.

More on Better Call Saul

Breaking Bad’s Gus Fring is back in new Better Call Saul teaser

Giancarlo Esposito’s restaurant-owning drug lord is back in a new teaser for the upcoming third season of Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul.

In the teaser, which takes the form of a promotion for Fring’s restaurant chain Los Pollos Hermanos, Fring appears to personally promise a money-back guarantee if patrons don’t like their food.

Esposito confirmed the return on his Twitter page, writing: “I’m back!! What you’ve been waiting for, the rise of Gus is coming!”

Fans speculated the Breaking Bad baddie would appear in Better Call Saul after they discovered the first letter all of last season’s episodes combined to spell ‘FRINGSBACK’.

The legendary Gus Fring was a significant character in Breaking Bad‘s third and fourth seasons, where he employed Walter White (and later Jesse Pinkman) to work in his meth producing operation. He was a ruthless drug lord who masqueraded behind the facade of a likeable and generous local business owner.

As fans of the series will know, Gus had links to criminal lawyer Saul Goodman – the protagonist of Better Call Saul – prior to his appearance in Breaking Bad.

More on Better Call Saul

The Coca-Cola trucks are out, John Lewis has us crying in advert breaks and the weather has turned unseasonably cold – it’s that time of year again. Winter Christmas is coming. And if you’re scratching your head wondering what to get friends and family, TVGuide.co.uk has the solution.

We’re reviving our biggest competitions of the past year especially for the festive season, and giving TVGuide.co.uk users the chance to win one of our favourite shows of 2016 on Blu-Ray… again!

Starting with… Better Call Saul seasons one and two on Blu-Ray.

The prequel to television’s hottest property of all time, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul has had a lot to live up to over two seasons. Yet it has somehow managed to meet and defy all expectations, achieving a Rotten Tomatoes score of 97% across both available seasons and Metacritic scores of 85%.

The story follows Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), the down-on-his-luck young lawyer who will one day become criminal lawyer Saul Goodman. While the story stands alone from Breaking Bad in a satisfactory way, the guest star list will thrill any Breaking Bad diehard. It seems that from the beginning, Jimmy’s been getting himself into a number of scrapes with the local drug cartels of Albuquerque – and the resulting television show is funny, emotional, and just as much of a thrill as its predecessor.

*

For your chance to win one of three Better Call Saul seasons one and two Blu-Ray boxsets just in time for Christmas!*, just answer the simple question below and leave your email address.

This competition is now closed. This competition is only open to UK applicants. Please see full Terms and Conditions here.

More on Better Call Saul

PICTURES: First look at season 3 of Better Call Saul

Picture releases of of Better Call Saul have given fans a taster of what is to come in season 3, and it’s looking like we’ll be seeing more of the post-Breaking Bad timeline…

The official series account @BetterCallSaul has shared a trio of snaps from the set of new scenes for the upcoming season. The pictures were posted with the caption: “#BetterCallSaul is back in court (the food court) in 2017.”

Viewers have already seen glimpses of Jimmy McGill working in this gloomy shopping Cinnabon in earlier series, as many episodes began with future flashes of where Jimmy ends up.

Seasons 1 and 2 of Better Call Saul have focused predominantly on Jimmy’s life before the events of Breaking Bad, as we watch the character negotiate the early days of his law career, well before he became known as the infamous, sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman. However, it would seem the third season will provide fans with more of an insight into Jimmy’s life after he goes on the run at the end of Breaking Bad.

Better Call Saul showrunner Peter Gould recently told Digital Spy that Saul’s future timeline was likely to be revisited in the season ahead:

“We’re fascinated by that black-and white world that Jimmy / Saul moves into, when he becomes Gene the Cinnabon manager.

“I found those scenes in Omaha very provocative and interesting and I’m fascinated by the idea of exploring that some more.”

And with this shift forward in time seeming so probable, fans of the franchise have been keeping their fingers crossed for the return of some old Breaking Bad favourites in this season. Producers have refused to rule out appearances from the likes of Jesse Pinkman or Walter White, and there have been some even more exciting hints about a comeback from the legendary and villainous Gus Fring.

More on Better Call Saul

Is Breaking Bad’s Gus Fring going to be in season 3 of Better Call Saul?

It’s looking as though the legendary Breaking Bad villain could be making a comeback to our screens as showrunner Peter Gould admits “it’s a good possibility Fring’s gonna play a role in season three”.

Sure, Heisenberg’s badass and all, but Gustavo ‘Gus’ Fring was always the true force to be reckoned with on Breaking Bad. His cold calculation and unsuspecting appearance were what made Gus a truly unique villain and, you gotta admit, his death in season 4 has to go down as one of the most iconic moments of the entire series.

And now it seems as though we may get to see the return of his character in the next series of Better Call Saul!

Breaking Bad fans seemingly exposed the villain’s big comeback when they spotted a secret coded message in the second series of Better Call Saul. The first letter of each episode title in the latest series spelt out F-R-I-N-G-S-B-A-C-K… Does this mean what we think it means?

When asked about the potential appearance, Better Call Saul‘s co-showrunner Peter Gould told Digital Spy: “It’s a good possibility Fring’s gonna play a role in season three”.

Gould continued: “There’s no doubt that Gus Fring is a fascinating character,

“He’s the most brilliant character on Breaking Bad in his own way, although he has a terrible blindspot when it comes to Walter White.”

Gould admitted that he would “love to” work with Giancarlo Esposito again, the actor who played Gus in the show. Alongside Saul, Mike Ehrmantraut is another focal character in the spin off series and so it would make sense to include some backstory on how Mike became Gus’ right-hand man.

Gould said: “It seems tough to imagine that this Mike would ever become the man that we saw on Breaking Bad, so it’ll be interesting to see what changes in Mike… and it would be fascinating to learn more about Gus Fring.”

Gould also warned fans that it would be pointless to search for similar clues in the episode titles of the next season of Better Call Saul:”I don’t know if we’re going to try and fool anybody again!

“We try never to play the same trick twice, so I don’t know if we’ll do another title clue acrostic… or whatever you would call that.”